From lojbab Mon Mar 21 14:03:26 1994 Subject: TECH: Minor Semantic Change TENSE #2 To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu From: John Cowan Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 14:03:26 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab (Logical Language Group) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1324 Status: RO Message-ID: TENSE #2 CURRENT LANGUAGE: No meaning is currently assigned to ZEhA, VEhA, VIhA, TAhE, ROI cmavo when used as sumti tcita. PROPOSED CHANGE: Interpret the sumti as specifying the interval during which the main bridi is true, thus: 1) mi klama le zarci reroi le cabdei I go-to the market [twice] the current-day I go to the market twice today. RATIONALE: It is useful to be able to specify a particular interval to be used with a tensed bridi. Currently, there is no simple mechanism for doing this, and interval-cmavo sumti tcita stand vacant. The reason that no previous meaning was documented for them was a lack of consistency between the interpretation of directional/metric (PU, ZI, FAhA, VA) sumti tcita and interval ones. However, there is no consistency between the interpretations of directional/ metric sumti tcita and interval-contour (ZAhO) sumti tcita anyway. The former group interpret the seltcita sumti as an origin, whereas the latter group interpret the sumti as the whole process of which the main bridi is a portion. Introducing a third interpretation (namely, sumti as interval) will not make things worse, and fills a hole both in interpretation of grammatical constructs and in speakability. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.